College is among the most important periods of musical exploration and discovery in a person’s life, a chance to differentiate your taste from that of your parents and the like-minded folks you surrounded yourself with in high school. College radio stations can be great for introducing you to new bands whenever they aren’t pumping out the same Green Day and Aerosmith songs over and over again. At the prestigious university I attended, College of DuPage, the radio station was run by professors, and thusly comprised of 90% jazz, with theme nights like reggae, salsa, and blues tossed in here and there.
While I appreciated the introduction to Charles Mingus, I had to learn about bands like Diiv and Smith Westerns through my friends who attended schools with student-run stations. The college rock landscape continues to expand and shift with each incoming freshmen class, with the Internet helping to fill in the cracks left by the 89.1’s and 88.5’s, introducing us to more new artists each week. There’s a lot to take in if you’re a young person just getting past listening to all the songs you heard at prom, so we’re here to help narrow it down for you.
–Pat Levy
Staff Writer
